Personally I think in the past 10 years Ive ordered maybe 20 pay per views (if you include amazon unbox)- Probably half were free from coupons or whatnot Ive had but I guess maybe I purchased 10).

VOD on the other hand I would probably use more often. Honestly Im not all that aware of what my cable company has since I had directv for like 8 years and only went to cable to use the S3s last year, but from what I gather theres tons of free stuff on many providers. I might use that. For example just recently I made one of my amazon unbox purchases to get an episode of My name is earl that both my s3s missed because Thursday nights are busy and the baseball playoffs wound up pushing my tuners over the edge. So I spent 1.99 getting it from unbox. Im not certain as I never really had vod, but I think some providers have some normal tv for free so perhaps I could have just gotten earl later on for free via VOD.

Its no deal breaker for sure but since they are going through the hassle to do SDV it would be nice to get VOD and PPV too and actually have a device that offers all the 2-way programming features that cable offers now without having to ditch tivo.

My opinions aside- a HUGE number of people use PPV. It's insane. I dont have the numbers at my finger tips but I remember once seeing directv's PPV take rate. And it was like so high that it meant many people order SEVERAL PPV's a week to make up for those of us that never use it. So some people do really like PPV. (and since much of VOD is free I assume it gets used piles too by a certain segment of the population)

Are you serious? Places like LA and NYC see over 1 million VOD session setups on any given weekend. VOD is extremely popular and only getting more popular. More and more HD is being delivered via VOD and with new services like TWCs Start Over the seeds of true network PVR are being planted.

I use PPV all the time. With two children it is far cheaper to pay $4 for a movie and watch it in my living room. I can't get VOD with Directv yet, but when I was at my brother's house I thought it was way cool.

VOD especially can be handy. Most providers have Subscription VOD channels for HBO, Cinemax, Showtime, etc. I've caught the odd episode of a recent series mid-season and used the VOD channel ("Showtime On Demand", etc) to catch up by watching the series from the beginning. To date, the VOD service that I've used has left much to be desired, performance-wise, with very slow response to commands and only one way-too-fast speed of FF and REW, but it's been marginally usable.

I've also used HD PPV and VOD a few times. Generally uninspired quality, though better than the standard definition stuff. The online movies I've been most satisfied with, though not a service of the cable providers, is high-definition downloads from Xbox Live Video Marketplace. If the cable providers could acheive that picture quality with the same level of command response they'd have something.

I use PPV all the time. With two children it is far cheaper to pay $4 for a movie and watch it in my living room. I can't get VOD with Directv yet, but when I was at my brother's house I thought it was way cool.

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As long as you have either an HR20 or the new HR20 D* receiver, you will have VOD available in the near future.

It is currently being testing and looks like it getting close to be ready for National Release. At this time the programs available for testing are mostly SD, but there are two HD ones, so HD should also be available before long.

The requested VOD programs are sent to your box over the internet, so you should get your box connected to be ready.

At this time, D* has to make a manual change to your account before you can receive VOD, but I suspect this will change before the NR.

Also at this time the VOD portion of the guide data seems to take up to 24 hours before it shows the available VOD shows after your box is connected and your account has been activated for VOD, but I suspect this may change before national release as well.

Unlike most cable company VOD, you need to wait a few minutes after you request a show before you can start watching it.

Of course this is better than Tivo's first Amazon Unbox implementation, where the show needed to be completely downloaded before you could start to watch it. I don't remember whether this has changed yet in either 9.1 or 9.2.

If you want to check out VOD on D*, look in the Cutting Edge portion of the dbstalk.com forum.

Of course this is better than Tivo's first Amazon Unbox implementation, where the show needed to be completely downloaded before you could start to watch it. I don't remember whether this has changed yet in either 9.1 or 9.2.

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9.2 supposedly supports playback of a program while it's downloading. I'm sure that it requires some minutes of buffering before you can start playing, but I haven't got 9.2 yet, so I'm unable to test it.

I've watched maybe 5 things in the last 3 years or so on VOD. Since I got my HDTiVo in Sept, I've watched quite a bit from Amazon Unboxed. If I wasn't such a sports nut and needed Espn, I'd drop Comcast like a bad habit, go 100% over the air, and buy from Amazon anything else I couldn't get.

9.2 supposedly supports playback of a program while it's downloading. I'm sure that it requires some minutes of buffering before you can start playing, but I haven't got 9.2 yet, so I'm unable to test it.

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Just got 9.2--I've tried Unbox and can verify that you can start playback immediately after downloading begins. Also, downloading begins almost immediately after ordering (within a minute of requesting it--the upgrade message says that it's been speeded up). As soon as the blue light came on, I found the listing in Now Playing for the download and pressed PLAY; I was warned that it was in the middle of downloading it and that, depending upon my download speed there might be pauses. There were no pauses and it finished downloading before I'd watched half of it, but I'm using a wired connection to my router and have seen my cable modem link hit 18 Mbps to my PC from some sites.

We are in the Suburban Chicago area, and I went back through the thread to August and did not find anything about the Chicago area.

Our ESPN2 HD has begun to experience occasional outages, and the Encore channels show a cable card message referencing the fact this is a one way RF device, and to contact the Cable Company. Issue is on both the THD w/MCard and the Cable card TV. Smells like SDV, but we have experienced tons of other issues going to Digital service and HD with Comcast. Most involve sending a tech out when it is a headend problem.

If a channel you are supposed to receive does not come in, how can you determine if it may have been switched to SDV?

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Other than calling the cable company and asking I don't know of any fool proof method. If it works on the cable box but doesn't work on your Tivo its a sign but not proof. Could still be cable card problems.

We are in the Suburban Chicago area, and I went back through the thread to August and did not find anything about the Chicago area.

Our ESPN2 HD has begun to experience occasional outages, and the Encore channels show a cable card message referencing the fact this is a one way RF device, and to contact the Cable Company. Issue is on both the THD w/MCard and the Cable card TV. Smells like SDV, but we have experienced tons of other issues going to Digital service and HD with Comcast. Most involve sending a tech out when it is a headend problem.

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The Chicago cable plant appears to be the flagship Comcast system. Since you lost your analog channels on July 1, I'm pretty sure that you are near the top of the list for SDV.

Has anyone heard of an ETA on the tuning resolver? I've seen a lot of talk about it, but no dates. Also, when it does come out, will it be a TiVo product that one has to buy, or will it be a cable company product for them to rent out?

It seems like it would really be in TiVo's interest to get these out there quickly. Not having cablecard functionality fully usable must be a big drag on TiVo HD sales.